How To Run A Hospital | Yes Minister | BBC Comedy Greats 

Can See, due to bad vital task

In a documentary about Yes Minister, one of the authors said that, although they had written this episode as a fictitious piece and satire, they later got news there were indeed such widely staffed hospitals without patients. Sometimes life exceeds satire...

@@kestasba2903 Thanks for bringing this to our attention! Essentially it's a problem with RU-vid allowing people to view the thumbnails and video titles of private videos that are scheduled for a later date.At least you have sneak peak at what Yes Minister videos are coming up!

Ikr? Humphrey always had the effect that at the end you were left thinking "Huh. That actually makes sense"

@@huzaifa8665 I mean, it's because it does depending on the hospital. Obviously no patients forever is kinda stupid, but if it's prepping for future patients and they'll hire docs and nurses future, then yes the hospital with no current patients makes sense

@@midgetwars1 They have been empty for 15 months and planned to be empty for at least another 18 and even after that, it is a may be and don't forget, with no staff, in the event of a future air raid, war, etc, you can't actually use the place as emergency treatment, because there is no doctors and nurses.

@@qichen85 Yes but as it is the intention when funds allow to bring in doctors and nurses and make the hospital operational its important to be prepared for any eventually that might occur once patients are allowed in. That all needs to be done before its open otherwise you will be caught unawares.

@@ejcmoorhouse I understand that and if it is, say, a few months of delay, then it is totally acceptable and understandable. However, in this case, the hospital has been in this state for 15 month and won't have the funding for doctors and nurses for at least another 2 or 3 years. And even the 2 or 3 years is a maybe, because it would require the economy to improve, which it may not. In fact, the action in other parts of the episode proved that it is not any valid financial or medical reason that kept the hospital like this, but a crazed Union leader that literally hold other patients in the entire region hostage. (and the episode ended with Hacker trading the hospital to the refugees, so his department can get out of trouble.) So while it is a win for the staff of a hospital with no patients, it ended up costing taxpayer money that could be used to open wards elsewhere.

“Seriously overworked“ in fact 😂

Greetings from Turkey, that is how my wife runs our kitchen.

Canada?

Apparently after this aired someone in either Government or Civil Service went up to the writers and said "We were worried about that empty hospital programme. We didn't want that to get out?" "You mean there really is a hospital like that?" "No, there are six of them!"

Administrators eliminating everyone's roles except their own? Say it ain't so!

​@@Mrjmaxted0291 Well, of _course!_ You don't really expect _nothing_ to run on its own, do you? Why, if _nothing_ is left unsupervised, it's just _bound_ to become _something_ - usually something just *_awful,_* to boot!

It happens in the private sector as well. One big investment bank for software development had 5 project managers for different projects and originally 5 developers to work on all the projects. Two developers were fired. Then two left. They managed the projects for a while with 5 project managers and 1 developer, not recruiting anyone else. Then they quit as well. Then, for 6 months, they only had 5 project managers making no progress on any projects, trying and failing to get agency and outsourcing developers to help. Failing, because the project managers were in the dark about the projects and what was required, and so the agencies just ran away when they realized how bad the situation was.

It is a similar situation with major research universities. They all wish they didn't have to teach undergraduates.

Yeah but the place has no medical staff, so where does that leave the nurses?

The dialog is brilliant

What’s your opinion on it as a whole?

@ Jelle Bos: Not with PATIENTS, I hope?

@Jelle Boss Do you employ medical staff???

It’s the most efficient hospital.

Absolutely !!

So you're saying that 90% of healthcare expenses for a medical establishment are non-medical expenses?

@@Ansible100 Could be for some medical expenses too. Like medicin stocks that expire, expensive machines that need service or even new machines, which could be filed in the budget under equipment or facilities rather than medical stuff. They are just a big really expensive hammer.

@@Ansible100 realistically, there is a lot of infrastructure and maintenance needed. Doctors and staff get paid either way, barring over time. So I wouldn't be surprised if the treatment itself is a much smaller part of the cost.

That's why govt looks towards pvt hospitals.. In military the spending is equivalent to rounds of ammunition fired and they are national heroes ... In hospital, they save a life and and you are attacked cos you charged money ...

@@BabluYogindre where has pvt hospitals worked?

That's how it's every time there's need to deal with the bureaucracy

It's the first time I've seen him going almost buggy over the ridiculousness of it all.

​@@danieldickson8591This is just such sheer nonsense even Humphrey can't be verbose enough to make it sound sensible 😂

Did you hear him break his pencil 🤣

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. All the best to you and yours.

greetings from Spain. I WISH we ran things like this.

Gretings from argentina, we wish we ran things.

lol from China and wtf really ?

Greetings from South Africa Help

He wasn't wrong. He was facing a mountain of bureaucracy feeding itself in a closed cycle.

This is the first scene from the series in which I've seen Hacker almost apoplectic over the insanity he's hearing.

Because while some of this stuff is supposed to go on, much of it should have been done long before the hospital was basically fully built. And the stuff about the disaster relief doesn't make sense unless there is actual medically trained staff there. Cause with just administrators it is no different from say using the local tax bureau as a shelter. 😂

Sounds rather Keynesian

...but it does work, just ask Humphrey.

@@synthonaplinth5980 LOL - you made me laugh

The irony of the show is that it is presented as satire, but it’s actually a remarkably accurate depiction of how government and the civil service actually work.

@@irkhanbasc yeah some of the writers used to be from them I believe.

@@kicapanmanis1060 I always thought the drinks room in the embassy episode was stupid. It turns out it was based on a real event! Truth is worse than fiction... This one: www.imdb.com/title/tt0751821/

and never mind the fact that the market reforms which were introduced into the NHS by the New Labour government actually ended up expanding the bureaucracy more than if it had been maintained completely within the public system.

My good sir the hospital they were talking about did not have a single medically trained personnel, there were no doctors, nurses or paramedics.

@@rin_etoware_2989 Jim wasn't replacing all of the staff with medical personal he wanted to fire half of them to get *ANY* medical personal. The hospital in its present form was not able to treat any patients. If what you were strawmanning me as saying was true and the hospital was going to replace all the administrative staff with medical staff the hospital would still be better equipped to deal with patients than it was.

@@datnoob4394 the hospital would run out of supplies within the week and people would die. The point is hospitals aren't just where you go when you're sick, they require armies of people behind the scenes to maintain everything and keep the system going.

​@@spooksmalloy All patients would die without Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics. Luckily for us in the real world, it isn't an all or nothing situation and we can employ some of both administration and medical staff. Is English your first language? if not, do you realise that you are stating Hospitals should employ zero doctors, nurses, paramedics or other medically trained staff? or to make it simple YOU ARE SAYING YOU BELIEVE THAT ALL DOCTORS, NURSES, PARAMEDICS AND OTHER MEDICALLY TRAINED STAFF SHOULD BE FIRED. I assume you've just made a mistake in your reading literacy. To be clear an undersupplied hospital isn't a good situation but it is still better than a well-supplied hospital that has ZERO staff capable of providing ANY medical aid.

Since alot of the scenes took place at desks, they used Q-cards which easily look like they're part of the set. The trick is not to look as if you're reading anything.

@@saladspinner3200Very good point, i did not know that, thank you!

@Mark Turner So true !!

@TheRenaissanceman65 Thank you....everything is much clearer now.

@TheRenaissanceman65 Precisely. It's not a question of whether these activities are important, but whether they should be conducted in a hospital (as opposed to an institution created specifically for those activities).

@TheRenaissanceman65 Precisely. It's not a question of whether these activities are important, but whether they should be conducted in a hospital (as opposed to an institution created specifically for those activities).

The contingency department sounds like exactly the kind of thing that shouldn't get a laugh for being kept open. Exactly the kind of department the NHS (and government) had been cutting to make savings for years in the name of "spend more on Nurses". Then we had Covid and loads of people died needlessly because our emergency planning/procurement of protective clothing for health care workers was hugely inadequate, outdated & loaded with unusable supplies. And that lack of contingency planning left 100% of the decision making during an epidemic with the government of the day to wing their way through it rather than being able to rely on planning organised by people who understand our health care system and how hospitals work / respond to high numbers of unexpected admissions due to being based in them.

Whoever got the contracts to build them has definitely trousered a few quid

Boris just gave contracts to his buddies to siphon the money. That's standard Tory trick.

No that would not be so charming.

You can see many of them on dailymotion

Yea but..,.... You know in the end 6 figures died including my dad 😢 and the administration and beurocratic inertia simply unable to change basically empty building into hospitals with adequate facility fast enough

I wouldn't call research a one time expense, neither building

Healing the sick with or without Patients, Liver pool rules

Except in this the hospital is built :(

You work in a hospital? I feel sorry for you?

@@fingerscrossed2453 every day, funding is taken away from staff who perform patient care and transferred to bureaucrats who make it more difficult to perform patient care.

@TheRenaissanceman65 Spot on. I remember reading an article by someone who became a minor celebrity in the 70's...(although can't even remember his name)..who related how he was treated for an emergency-care issue in NYC at Belle Vue Hospital....was treated very well and discharged with some pills within a few hours. He came back to the UK and regaled all his friends as to how marvelous the American Health Care System was....and how all the myths that British people believed were exactly that: Myths. Then. The bill arrived....it was in the order of GBP700! (A lot of money in the mid 70's.....) Moral of the story? Protect the NHS from the shysters. They are only interested in $$$$$. Not You. Not Me. Not your loved ones. No-one but themselves. Be Very Aware.

No, in the USA, it is a business, and when you are dealing with the sickness of yourself or loved ones you don't shop around for cost. Therefore in USA it is a business that rips off the vulnerable, i.e. the sick, and the fat cat companies pay off the political class with "business expenses" funding PACs, and hiding it all onto "overheads" that perpetuates the merry go round with ever more expensive medicine and technology! Thankfully we have NICE and PHE, but health does not bring in money for the industry in the USA and hence the industry mantra of "avoiding a nanny state" and "avoid high taxes". The fat cats don't have any problem with bail outs however, surprise, surprise, because doing otherwise will cause "economic collapse"! It is like the banks - the taxpayers get ripped off either way!

I agree. I tried watching Still Open All Hours, the update of one my favourite shows. Despite the presence of David Jason (who had somehow become like Arkwright, the opposite of Granville), one or two more of the original cast and Johnny Vegas, who is usually good, it was awful. The word play had gone, along with the double entendres and the jokes were clumsy and heavy handed. Even though it's written by Roy Clarke. Such a shame.

True

And highly inefficient.

1. It is written by a Thacherite. 2. It cost a lot of money and produced no results for too long a time.

Account for Comment - It wasn’t just written by a Thatcherite...

Collaboratively written by fellows who were on both sides of the line. They were aiming at the government/civil service divide, not the Tory/Labor divide.

I kinda see your point. One does not open an airport by grabbing some planes and flying them. All the support structures must be in place and working before the first plane takes off. A hospital with doctors but no equipment or drugs or ambulances is useless. How does Hacker intend to run the payroll for the doctors, they won’t be happy when they are working and not getting paid.

@@mattwho81 The problem is these people do not want to let any patient in. have you heard the retail joke. The job would be fine if it wasn't for the customers. I saw this episode and all the drugs and equipment was already in place. They just did not want to open the hospital.

2020 came up in the trident episode.

@@meneither3834 oh Ok.

They also mentioned historic years from time to time, like the year the DAA was founded, and I think the Battle of Waterloo.

Yes, it was done. Shall we return to feudalism, so that it can be done again?

This was also done by the Royal Navy long after the civil war. They press ganged random men into crewing the ships in war time and then tossed them ashore without work when peace time meant they could keep many of the ships anchored in harbour. The navy could get away with it because the press gangs would gather conscripts from shore or merchant ships as soon as a new war broke out. The modern British Army and Navy would struggle with such rapid changes in staffing levels today, as it takes time to recruit volunteers.

@@zarabada6125 Not just in the UK either. Disbanding the army (or at least most of it) is also a proud American tradition. We tend to forget this because of the long cold war, but prior to WWII, the USA frequently disbanded most of it's regular soldiers and officers after a war.

Look at Japan.. after their defeat in WW2 , they have no army . Only " defense force "

Not really a theory just you're ideas

I agree. It's frustrating that humans are subservient to checkboxes

Oh, nonsense. Bureaucracy is just a matter of continuous smooth operation. Even evil and malice, though suboptimal, can be worked with. What I don't have the patience for is stupidity. You can't, for instance, negotiate with a moron. Kidnappers can sincerely promise to release their hostages, but no dimwit can actually act on a promise to stop being stupid!

In this case, Jim trying to cut through the bureaucracy would be the disaster. Humphrey is 100% right in this situation. He's just godawful at explaining why everything he just said is necessary.

And in private hospitals, they throw away a life if it won't make them a profit. Kinda defeats the point of the facility in the first place.